How did slaves contribute to the economic success of the southern colonies?
Slaves represented Southern planters’ most significant investment—and the bulk of their wealth. Building a commercial enterprise out of the wilderness required labor and lots of it. For much of the 1600s, the American colonies operated as agricultural economies, driven largely by indentured servitude.Click to see full answer. In this regard, what was a cotton gin…
Slaves represented Southern planters’ most significant investment—and the bulk of their wealth. Building a commercial enterprise out of the wilderness required labor and lots of it. For much of the 1600s, the American colonies operated as agricultural economies, driven largely by indentured servitude.Click to see full answer. In this regard, what was a cotton gin and what effect did it have on slavery in the South?While it was true that the cotton gin reduced the labor of removing seeds, it did not reduce the need for slaves to grow and pick the cotton. In fact, the opposite occurred. Cotton growing became so profitable for the planters that it greatly increased their demand for both land and slave labor.One may also ask, what did slaves eat in the South? Weekly food rations — usually corn meal, lard, some meat, molasses, peas, greens, and flour — were distributed every Saturday. Vegetable patches or gardens, if permitted by the owner, supplied fresh produce to add to the rations. Morning meals were prepared and consumed at daybreak in the slaves’ cabins. Keeping this in consideration, why did the plantation system come to play such an important role in the Southern economy? The plantation system developed in the American South as the British colonists arrived in Virginia and divided the land into large areas suitable for farming. Because the economy of the South depended on the cultivation of crops, the need for agricultural labor led to the establishment of slavery.What was slavery like in the southern colonies?Slaves and indentured servants, although present in the North, were much more important to the South. They were the backbone of the Southern economy. Settlers in the Southern colonies came to America to seek economic prosperity they could not find in Old England.
